Lovett's Magnatones

Like 2015 DD out on the PP.

1-0 halfway through the second on HNIC. Scoring is .10 goals per game more than pre-lockout and fighting is almost extinct. #worsethandeadpuck

He's been the biggest disappointment of the year and number two is Beaulieu. I really thought he would make the most of his opportunity with Weber; I thought he looked pretty good, but what do I know? Therrien seems to dislike this player.

Big Mac looks pretty good. He's got a ceiling, but he might be one of the better third liners in the league a few years from now.

What's the deal? It doesn't look like he's going to the net like he used to.

Contenders vs Pretenders

Illwill made ALN! http://www.hockeyinsideout.com/news/about-last-night-canadiens-swamp-new-jersey-5-2

He's hurt a lot, and he plays small for his size. Fans hate players like that.

What's funny is that Benning was wanted in every GM opening for years .

There's got to be more han one inveterate moron...Jim Benning can only hog the lowlight for so long.

Not a fan of the firing in the least bit. Gallant isn't Joel Quenville or Claude Julien (special teams haven't been great under him) but he did a better job than to be turfed at the first reasonable moment, with no respect whatsover. I don't want to be digressive, but Vinnie Viola is an asshole. He's fixated on West Point, hiring military guys to work in the front office and scheduling a silly exhibition game at the USMA. If you look at their organization chart, some of these guys don't even have hockey backgrounds. One of he AGMs is a lawyer that's never been involved with the game at any level. The kid Travis has a role, and he was a bat boy. If Vinnie isn't careful, he's going to become the new Charles Wang.

We the People Hold these truths to be self evident, that 54 (!) tweets from the St John's Ice Caps since the start of the 1st period of tonight's game hath crossed the line of acceptable Twitter etiquette. We've doth convened a Convention of States to amend our message board Constitution to eliminate the Ice Caps and their memes from the Twitter feed where most of us get our on demand news about the league, even if we can't stop in and post as much as we'd like, as schedules get busy in the life of a yeoman farmer. And I sign my name large enough so the pencil necked, millenial dweeb webmaster of the wayward Twitter handle can read, Lovett's Magnatones

I knew this team stunk.

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Rinne is really struggling. He hasn't been good for a couple of seasons now. I agree with Scott that they lost a lot of their balance by trading Weber. They're too soft.

The Habs are diving all over the place tonight.

My take on his CF% is that he collapses around the net much more than other defensemen. You can watch him and he's never more than a few feet away from the crease. This is going to lead to more shots against, but there won't be as many high quality shots in and around the net. I don't think he's the full Douglas when it comes to being spanked in his own zone by any means.

Louis Domingue has shut the door. This guy plays three good games a year and two of them are vs MTL.

White is looking for trouble. Where's Trizzak?

I'm starting to think their situation at center is even worse this year without Eller, and I hate Lars Eller. Plekanec needs to get it together and get at least 50 pts this year or they need to make a trade for a 2nd line center.

And as much as we used to knock him the crotchety you know what was right. He wouldn't have as much fun these days now that the air is out of the balloon with this group. They really had their shot that year before Kreider bowled over Price.

I was really shocked he didn't pull through...just kidding, no I wasn't.

Luongo has been the biggest factor in turning things around. The last time they were any good was when he was in net as a young player.

Their goaltending is too good for a severe drop, but there will be a drop. 6th-10th place is my prediction.

I saw the Panthers on Thursday and I wasn't impressed at all. Of course, they're without Huberdeau and Bjugstad, so that has to temper expectations. Their defense is much more mobile and they have Matheson and Ekblad improving as the years go on, but they might have the softest d-corp in the entire league. That defense is going to get crushed on the cycle. I wouldn't say that the d is worse than last, but they're going to chewed up by worse teams like Boston that know how to cycle and hold the puck. The whole team is soft as butter, and some of the guys (Pysyk, Marchessault) are creations of anyaltics. Vinnie Viola made his dough on Wall Street with a 100% analytic based approach with Virtu, so this could be the most purely analytics driven team in NHL history. I'm very confused in general as to why they practically blew the team and the front office up after their best season in twenty years. I have the Habs ahead of them, and depending on their injury situation (Barkov the Bandaid Boy) they could fall right out of the playoff picture. Pierre said it best on TSN690; the Panthers are going to be a team to watch because they made a lot of decisions over the Summer that fly in the face of accepted orthodoxy.